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Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that made me smile this week: We were singing songs and singing along to The Muffin Man. Maddie went to the kitchen and started searching for muffins. Hilarious!

Something I’m thinking: I don’t have enough hours in the day.

Something I am hoping: That we have fun at the movie tonight and that Maddie and Aunt Kristin have a good time. We haven’t had a babysitter for Maddie since our anniversary in October! Kristin was free tonight and offered to watch Maddie, so we’re going to see the new Pixar movie, Up.

Something happening around the house: Laundry, laundry, and more laundry. And how is it that the cleaners came on Tuesday and yet our house is a complete wreck again?

Something I’m reading: I finished Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman in time for book club. I read a little bit of Parenting, Inc., but I haven’t had very much time to read this week. I’ve been mostly sorting through my photos from the trip and writing up trip reports for the blog.

Something tasty I ate this week: I made the beef and veggie casserole again as we had zucchini, tomatoes, and squash in our Produce Box. We also had some tasty new potatoes from the box last night.

Something Maddie did this week: Maddie did a lot of dancing – we have been playing her cruise CD which is a partnership between Royal Caribbean and Little People. We bought a few more children’s CDs yesterday.

Something I struggled with this week: The time has come for Maddie’s night weaning. We didn’t want to make any major changes to Maddie’s routine before the Bermuda cruise. Since we had no major plans this weekend, we decided it would be a good time to try to encourage her to go back to sleep without nursing. We started Friday, and it’s going to be a tough road.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: We finally closed on our mortgage refinance. Holy crap, that took forever. WE scheduled an appointment with the same lawyer to do our wills. We have been meaning to do this since before Maddie was born. Oh, and we actually watched two episodes of Dollhouse last night. Hopefully, we will get a chance to finish watching the first season. The show has been taking up quite a bit of our DVR space.

Something I learned this week: Recently, I was alarmed that Chick-fil-a uses peanut oil in their chicken products since Maddie has had a little bit of their chicken (honestly, she doesn’t care to touch it most of the time). I have been waiting to expose her to peanuts. I learned this week that due to the cooking process, the peanut oil no longer contains the protein which is what causes the allergy. Good to know.

Something I’m looking forward to next week: I’m looking forward to visiting with family next weekend. We’ll be seeing my parents and my mom’s cousin and wife.

Something random: Facebook has been annoyingly sluggish this week.

Something I captured: I can understand someone mistaking her for a boy if she’s dressed like this all the time (though I still think she looks like a girl no matter what, but maybe that’s just me!).

Maddie had the time of her life on the cruise. My most treasured moments of the trip were watching her running around the decks. She definitely got her sea legs by the end of the cruise. It was so much fun watching her. I’m not ready for a vacation without her, and I’m not sure I will be anytime soon. We had a lot of fun as a family. I would definitely do it again (well, I guess that’s a good thing since we’re going on another cruise in the fall!). Click through to the post to see the embedded video.

We decided to order room service this morning since we didn’t want to wake up too early but wanted to get off the ship to explore as soon as we could. This worked out fairly well, though the breakfast was delivered a little later than we had expected. We didn’t have our bus/ferry passes that we had ordered the previous day, so Maddie and I had to go down to the explorations desk and wait in a long line. While we were waiting, the breakfast was delivered. Maddie and I ate our breakfast while Gabe took his shower.

We had quite a bit of stuff to haul with us in port. We departed the ship with a full backpack, the stroller, and the big camera bag. We posed for the obligatory port photo (which we were glad to do!). The photographers were amusing as half of them were dressed as pirates. “Come get your picture taken with the pirate! Arrrr!!! Get your picture with the LADY pirate!” We were amused.

We took the ferry to St. George’s since we learned it would be faster than taking the bus. We just made the ferry, which was lucky since they leave about once an hour. We wondered why everyone else had a different type of ticket from us, but they let us on the ferry, so we didn’t think about it too much. Maddie did great on the ferry until Gabe went to the restroom. She was NOT happy about that, but a little girl came over to cheer her up. They did a little bit of fighting over the toys (under 2-year-olds do not understand the concept of sharing), but they were very cute together. Everyone wanted to play with Valentino. They also loved That’s Not My Train (a new one for this trip!) and That’s Not My Dragon.

We chose St. George’s since it is small and historic. Many of the buildings were built in the 1600s! I just love the colors all around Bermuda in the buildings, flowers, and water. We had a gorgeous day! Bermuda is a beautiful place. We walked around most of St. George’s with Maddie riding in the stroller. She loves that thing. Unfortunately, St. George’s is not completely stroller friendly. We had some sidewalks in places, but most of the town (and Bermuda as a whole) seems to have narrow roads without sidewalks with lots of blind curves and crazy drivers. We had heard that not everywhere was stroller friendly, and it didn’t stop us from seeing the sights.

We started at the visitor center where we got a few maps and figured out where we wanted to go. It was neat walking around St. George’s as I remembered a few of the sights from when my family visited when I was a kid. I remembered St. Peter’s Church, the gallows, and the dunking stool. Our first stop was St. Peter’s Church which was originally built in 1615 (though most of the present structure is from about 100 years later).

Our next stop was up the hill to The Unfinished Church ruins. When doing my research at home, I thought that this looked like a really neat place to visit. It was probably my most favorite spot in St. George’s. It’s at the top of the hill with a lovely view of the ocean. The church began construction in the 1870s and was intended to replace St. Peter’s Church. For various reasons, it was never finished. Maddie thought it was a neat place to explore.

We had the place to ourselves for the most part, but two other groups of people came into the church while we were there. Some strangers took our photo.

Maddie found some nice places to sit.

We continued to walk around St. George’s and found a nice little park. I recognized this style of “moon gate” from my childhood visits to Bermuda.

Another stranger took our photo in the park.

By this point, we were hungry and found lunch at the White Horse Tavern. Good grief Bermuda food is expensive. I guess they have to import a lot since they are a tiny bunch of islands in the middle of the ocean? Our lunch was almost $60. Holy crap! Maddie didn’t eat very much and was ready for her nap in the stroller right after lunch.

Gabe and I walked around and took in some more of the sights. We walked up to the State House and surrounding area and along the waterfront. We went to the Customs House to get our passports stamped.

We boarded the ferry at about 3pm and headed back to our ship. Maddie was a tad bit more restless on the return trip, but a few nice passengers played peek-a-boo and entertained her for a portion of the 50-minute boat ride. All in all, she had a great day!

We couldn’t resist taking a few photos of our ship.

Maddie took this one.

Since we put sunscreen on Maddie for our outing, we tried to bathe her before dinner. She HATED our makeshift bathing situation. We put a washcloth over the showerhead so that it dripped onto her and a towel on the floor so we could sit in the shower, but she just didn’t like it. We just washed her as quickly as possible. She could have used a longer nap on this day, so we knew that dinner might be a tad iffy. We had a little time before dinner, so we tried to burn off some energy on the decks. She really loved this part of the day. During dinner, we tried entertaining her with crayons and books, but she still didn’t make it through the whole meal.

After dinner, we want back to change Maddie into her pajamas and put her in the Ergo carrier. We walked around the ship and realized we had just missed a pretty sunset. Maddie fell asleep on Daddy, and we went to watch Battle of the Sexes. It was pretty much the same gameshow as the one on our last cruise, but it was fairly entertaining. We then went to the photo gallery where we picked out some of the formal portraits from the previous night. Maddie woke up at some point, so we headed back to the cabin to call it an early night. The casino was closed, so neither of us needed to rush off to play poker.

Day 2 was our first full day on the ship. I love sea days! We can always find plenty of activities to try, though we didn’t take full advantage on this trip. We adjusted our clocks during the night one hour forward. I had planned to go to the playgroup at 9am, but we found that our alarm had not been set properly. We woke at 8:45am, and I rushed to get ready and make it to the playgroup.

I’ll write more about the Royal Babies and Royal Tots programs in a separate post, but we did manage to join three other babies: Annabelle (9 months), Eddie (9 months), and Joey (11 months). Maddie mostly sat on my lap and watched the other babies. Considering she was the only one walking in the bunch, she may have enjoyed the older group more. They provided animal toys which were cute.

After the playgroup, we headed to the Windjammer for breakfast. We ran into one of the Cruise Critic couples that we were planning to meet later in the day. The breakfast buffet was good, but we still prefer the breakfast in the dining room.

We went to the stroller walk at 11am where we saw Eddie’s family again. We didn’t realize that the stroller walk was an actual workout. The same person who ran the playgroups headed up the stroller “run.” She urged us to go “as fast as possible” and that it was a sort of race. We had no problems letting Eddie’s family win the race. Whew, that was hard work!

Gabe headed to his hot rocks massage while Maddie and I spent some time together. We explored a bit and then went to lunch in the dining room. We joined a nice family – a young woman who is working on her PhD in psychology and her parents. They were great tablemates, and I enjoyed the social lunch since we had nobody sitting with us at dinner the previous night. Gabe joined us at the end of the meal, and we headed to the poolside to get lunch for him. He loved his hot stones massage (my lunch buddies agreed that a massage involving rocks is more manly). We caught part of Tribond Trivia, but we didn’t get a chance to play along. Mostly, we heard the recap and the answers at the end.

We then tried to get Maddie to nap before our Cruise Critic meeting, but she did not play along. We walked around the ship quite a bit. We had a bit of confusion on where to meet our Cruise Critic bunch, and the mix-up resulted in only meeting one other couple. The forum had indicated that we should meet in the Crown & Anchor Lounge, but some people interpreted it as the Viking Crown Lounge. The other couple checked both places, but we didn’t see anyone obviously looking to meet with people.

The other couple was very nice, and we decided to grab some drinks in the Viking Crown Lounge. They also had a 15-month old who they had left at home this time. Maddie fell asleep about the time that we met up with them, and she slept through our meeting. I think that the movement of the boat was good for her at naps and bedtime. I don’t think that we spent any time in the Viking Crown Lounge last cruise. It’s a nice, quiet place to grab a drink and has nice views of the 10th deck (and the ocean, of course). Every time we went there on this cruise, it was almost empty. I hear that it becomes a dance club after 10pm, but we weren’t really interested in finding out much about that.

The ship was rocking quite a bit on this day. When we were in the Windjammer for breakfast, we couldn’t believe how much the horizon was moving up and down. It was a bit crazy, but it didn’t bother any of us. Maddie seemed to notice that things were different. It didn’t take her long to find her sea legs. I found that I liked the motion of the ship, especially at night when I was trying to sleep. I will say that I had heard that you don’t feel the motion on the big ships. I have not found this to be true on the two cruises that I have taken. I have felt the ship’s motions even when we’re docked, but I might not be the best person to ask as I feel it when we’re on land for a few days afterward, too. Ha!

After our meeting in the Viking Crown Lounge, we saw the tail end of the Name That Tune trivia (Movie themes). We didn’t get to play again, but we did hear the recap and answers. It was fun to guess at them real quick before people blurted out the answers. Maddie woke from her nap and was a bit restless, so we didn’t stick around long. We hoped that she would take another nap, but it wasn’t meant to be.

We went to the Crayola Beginnings session instead. Maddie was the only baby at this arts session for Royal Babies and Royal Tots. We played with crayons and stamps and decorated a butterfly. Maddie seemed to enjoy it. The same woman who did the playgroups does all of the infant and toddler sessions. She read Maddie a story, and we went to get dressed and have our photos made.

Maddie didn’t exactly want to cooperate with the photo sessions, but she did pretty well. She was a bit squirmy and refused to smile for the photos, but we ended up with some decent photos. It was difficult for us to decide. We had our photo made in front of most of the backdrops (we learned later that we missed a few nice ones!). We hoped that the stairs photo would be good of the three of us, but the plain blue background turned out to be the best. We had a very nice stairs photo made of us on the last cruise.

The stairs were different in the Centrum area on this cruise. I think our last cruise had a more winding staircase while this one just had a shorter staircase up to the elevator area. Maybe the other staircase was better for sitting poses. I’m not sure that would have worked with Maddie, anyway.

After photos, we let Maddie run around on the decks. She really loves the decks. I have no idea what it is that makes her so happy, but she loves it. I hope that she’s just as thrilled about running on the decks in the fall. She looked like a little sugarplum fairy and received a ton of compliments tonight.

We were so excited that we were seated at a new table for dinner this night. We were a little nervous to switch tables as we were afraid that we would get seated at a table with baby-hating people. Our fears were unfounded. We sat at a table with a couple who had been married for over 60 years and their daughter and husband. They are great-grandparents and grandparents to a 3-year old that they see often. They absolutely loved Maddie! The other two ladies at our table had been friends for over 40 years and go cruising together without their husbands from time to time. They were a lot of fun. Everyone was very understanding about having a toddler at the table (not to mention that we removed her from the dining room each night before she got out of hand). We were very courteous of other dinner guests and knew when we needed to take her out of the dining room for a change of scenery.

Tonight, Gabe and I both had the filet for our entree, which I think was my favorite entree of the cruise. The steak was very good. Maddie enjoyed her first of four cold fruit soups, a tasty pear soup. She loved it! She also had a fruit plate, pizza, broccoli, carrots and bread. She hasn’t been eating pizza when we offer it to her lately. I’m not sure why she’s not interested in pizza! She did eat a little bit of everything else. The waitstaff was accommodating of her needs, though they usually brought way more than she could possibly eat!

After dinner, we went back to the room to change our clothes and put Maddie in her jammies. We put Maddie in the sling on me. We tried to go to the “Broadway” show, but Maddie wasn’t interested. We just walked around the ship a bit instead. Once she was sleeping, we went up to the Viking Crown Lounge where we had drinks and some sort of trail mix snack. Maddie peacefully slept in the Ergo while I enjoyed my favorite non-alcoholic mixed drink, Papaya Crush. I remembered the drink from last time and had had it in the Viking Crown Lounge earlier in the day. The waiter remembered our drink orders from then.

We then went back to try to put Maddie in the pack-n-play, but the transition was a complete disaster. We tried to get her to sleep in the bed, but she wanted to climb off the bed and was very restless. I told Gabe to go ahead and go to the casino, but I had to wrestle with her for the next hour or so until she (and I) fell asleep. I was so tired! Gabe played poker until quite late. We were both excited to play live poker again. After the first two nights, we were exactly even on poker (I gained $26 the first night, he lost $26 the second night). We can’t complain about ending up even!

We were extremely relieved to be on board the Grandeur of the Seas. We met the coordinator for the Royal Babies (6-18 months) and Royal Tots (18-36 months) programs. She was very nice. She was from the Ukraine, young, and had a master’s degree in education. We met with her several times throughout the trip.

We noticed similarities right away between the Grandeur of the Seas and the ship we had sailed on previously, Vision of the Seas. They are both in the Vision class of ships and have very similar deck plans. We already felt like we knew our way around the ship. This was nice, but we are both looking forward to sailing on a completely different ship in the fall. We found our stateroom, 4061, and discovered that the beds had not been pushed together. We also did not have the pack-n-play that we had requested or a child’s life vest. We went to the purser’s desk to request these three changes. Our stateroom was definitely smaller than the one we had on the Vision of the Seas. We had an interior stateroom this time (last time we had an oceanview). We had just enough space, and we were still impressed with the efficiency of the space. I will probably write up a more detailed review of the Grandeur of the Seas in a separate post.

We had decided to get spa treatments on the cruise, and I had heard that slots can book quickly. We booked our spa sessions. I booked a regular massage for 4:30pm on that day, and Gabe booked a hot stones massage for the following day. It had been a while since I had a massage, so I was quite excited! I was also glad that Gabe decided to give it a try. He had never had a professional massage, so I knew this would be quite a treat for him!

At this point, it was about 1pm, so we headed to the Windjammer buffet for lunch. Maddie ate a decent lunch but especially enjoyed the fruit tart. She was so cute eating it and got it all over her nose and face. She thought this was hilarious.

We had many people mistake Maddie for a boy on this day. I figured that it was because she was wearing blue. Most of the time, it happened while she was in the stroller. I figured they saw the red stroller and blue clothing and assumed boy. This continued throughout the cruise, even when she was wearing pink and frilly dresses! Again, it mostly happened when she was in the stroller, but it was still somewhat surprising to us. Many times, we would encounter an older couple and the woman would make the mistake. Her husband would correct her, saying things like, “um, I think she’s a girl. She’s wearing a dress.” It’s not a huge deal – I’d always find a way to work in the feminine pronouns, but I am just surprised that it happened so much. I guess that people assume that babies are boys unless they have long hair??

After dinner, it was time for Maddie’s nap, so we took a stroll around the decks. Gabe ordered his second beer for the cruise – we’re officially on vacation! Maddie fell asleep in the stroller. We kept moving while she was asleep since we knew she needed her nap! Later in the trip, we discovered that she would sleep in the stroller even when we weren’t moving, as long as there weren’t too many distractions. She definitely has a better chance of staying asleep if we keep moving.

Maddie was still sleeping when it was time for our muster drill. We grabbed our life jackets and hoped that they wouldn’t require us to take Maddie out of the stroller. Thankfully, she was able to snooze during most of the drill. She was barely bothered by the test sirens. She woke up when the horn was sounding, but she quickly went back to sleep. It’s good to be a baby.

Maddie woke up towards the end of the Muster drill. I went back to the room to return the life jackets, and we made a plan to meet on Deck 10 where we were going to try to get Maddie to sleep a bit more. We knew we could walk in a loop on that deck based on our memory from the other cruise. Plus, we thought it would be a good place to watch Norfolk disappear into the horizon. When I got to the room, I decided to do some unpacking. I just love the way that the space is organized in the staterooms. I’m not usually the type to unpack on a vacation, but I think it’s critical for cruising. We ran into another family who commented towards the end of the trip that they were tired of tripping over suitcases. I was shocked that they had not unpacked anything! I don’t think we would have been able to survive in the tiny room otherwise! We were able to put our suitcases away in the closet, nesting them where possible.

By the time I got to deck 10, it had started to rain for a few minutes. I couldn’t find Gabe and Maddie, and it was about time for me to head to my massage. I didn’t have time to look for them or see our departure, but I wasn’t too disappointed to head to my massage appointment. This was the first time we made the mistake of not having a detailed plan. We wished that we had pagers or walkie talkies on this trip! Plus, it would have helped if we both had watches since our cell phones were not available as time keepers.

My massage was wonderful. The masseuse used just the right amount of pressure, and it was very relaxing. I had so many knots in my back due to all the stress in the past few weeks as well as the usual hunching over my work keyboard. A few times, I had to giggle. I’m just a tad ticklish in spots. Overall, it was awesome. I also enjoyed the cucumber/strawberry water. Refreshing!

I met Gabe and Maddie in our stateroom just in time to head to dinner. We were very disappointed (especially me) to be seated at a table by ourselves. One of my favorite parts of the last cruise was getting to know our tablemates. I was looking forward to seeing what kind of people we would have at our table for this trip. We also wanted to have tablemates so that we would have company whenever one of us has to leave the table with Maddie. We knew the two hour meals would be too long for her. We asked several of the waiters if they could transfer us to a new table with other guests for the following night, but they weren’t sure what they were going to be able to do. We had initially been on the waiting list for the main seating, and that seating is quite popular. Dinner was very tasty, and Maddie made it through the entree. I had some kind of onion and cheese tart as my appetizer which was probably one of my favorites from the cruise. I liked it so much that I requested a second one! My entree was pork medallions followed by a peach/blueberry cobbler. Everything was great. Gabe had a caesar salad, prime rib, and the same cobbler. He later told me that his prime rib wasn’t great – too bad he didn’t tell me this until after I had ordered one a few dinners later.

After dinner, we went for a stroll on the deck. We hoped that Maddie might fall asleep, but we decided it was too cold and windy. Plus, she was showing no signs of sleep at this point. We went to the Welcome Show. Turns out that our cruise and activities directors are the same ones that we had on the Vision of the Seas. What are the odds of that? John Blair and his wife Katrina were on board with their vibrant enthusiasm. They are definitely good at what they do. They fit the bill for cruise entertainers, that’s for sure! We were a little disappointed that the welcome show was a repeat of the one we saw on the Vision. Turns out that the cruise had many more similarities than just the deck plans. We were surprised given how many people are repeat cruisers. The good part about this is that we didn’t feel like we missed as much as we might have if we had never cruised before Maddie.

Some nice man had given up his seat for us, near the back of the theatre. The seating in the back is in the form of love seats, which was perfect for our little family. Maddie was pretty happy for a good portion of the show. She thought it was funny when everyone laughed at the jokes onstage. She started to get a little fussy after about 20-30 minutes, so we had to leave.

We had a plan for me to go and see the Finish the Lyrics gameshow while Gabe tried to get Maddie to sleep. Then, I would come back to tend to Maddie while he went to the comedy show. We both would have a little bit of time to play some video poker or slots in the casino. Good, solid plan. Then, I walked into the casino and they were paging people to come and play $1-2 No Limit Texas Hold’em. Open seats, right now! I did exactly what I felt Gabe would have done…walked right over, and plunked down my $100 buy-in. I was excited to play real casino poker again, and I knew Gabe would be forgoing his plans to go to the comedy show!

Gabe appeared a little while later with Maddie sleeping in the Ergo carrier. He had a rough time getting her to sleep in the pack-n-play when I left, so he tried the sling in desperation. It worked, and we would use this method in the coming days to get her to sleep at night. Gabe stood and watched me play until the pit boss kicked him out of the casino. Obviously, we were corrupting the sleeping baby…babies aren’t allowed in casinos! He went back to the room and was able to transfer Maddie successfully to the pack-n-play. I called a little bit later, and he urged me to keep playing. I promised he could play tomorrow night.

I’ll probably post more details about the poker separately. I cashed out $26 richer – nothing to get too excited about, but I’ll always take a winning session. You won’t hear me complaining! It was so much fun. I had forgotten how much I love playing the poker! I went back to the room shortly after 11pm or so as I didn’t want to chance getting back after Maddie wakes.

I’ve posted the rest of the miscellaneous photos from April. Click on the photo to see the rest.

Packing for two adults and a toddler is challenging! I organized my packing list on the iPod Touch. I love my new toy! The list was ridiculous. We just needed so many things “just in case” in addition to all the normal stuff. We ended up with one large suitcase, a suitbag, two carry-on sized bags, the camera bag, the new umbrella stroller, and an overnight bag that we left in the car after our hotel stay. Whew! It’s a bit tricky packing for a cruise when it involves formalwear and all the shoes and accessories that accompany that. The good news is that we packed very little that we didn’t use. We had so much packing to do on Thursday night that we were unable to watch the Grey’s Anatomy finale. I knew it was a big episode, and I didn’t want anyone to give away what happened!!! I downloaded the show for the iPod, hoping we could see it while in the hotel.

We left on Friday after work and headed to Norfolk. According to the GPS, we had very little dinner options after leaving the Raleigh area. For about 60 miles, there’s just NOTHING. We decided to have dinner before leaving town. We were hungry, and we didn’t want to wait too long to feed Maddie either! Overall, the drive was boring but thankfully uneventful.

We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Suffolk. Apparently, they have two of them in the area (or perhaps they relocated). We were somewhat concerned that we were headed to the wrong one as we saw a sign for a different one about 20 minutes before our exit. Fortunately, our directions were correct. Turns out that the hotel has been open for less than a month! We were the first people to stay in our room. Wow, I’ve never had that experience! Aside from a little fresh paint smell, it was great. We have had very good experiences with Hilton Garden Inns, and it has become our middle-of-the-road hotel of choice.

Maddie napped most of the way between dinner and Suffolk, and she was wide awake and excited when we got to the hotel room. She really loved jumping around on the bed. She giggled and giggled while flopping around on the big, comfy bed. We didn’t bother with a pack-n-play and eventually got her to sleep in the bed. Gabe and I watched the 2-hour Grey’s Anatomy finale. I’m glad that we did! It was a bit odd watching on a tiny little screen and the sound was a bit soft since we didn’t have speakers or headphones. It worked, though, and I actually discussed the finale with another passenger on the cruise.

We had the breakfast in the hotel, which was a little pricey but tasty enough. It was convenient. They didn’t have a high chair which we assumed because the hotel was brand new. Maddie did pretty well sitting in the booth with me, but she was too restless to sit through the entire meal. They took forever to bring our check and settle it afterwards. We went to pack the luggage and kid into the car. When we got Maddie into the car, I realized that we had left Valentino in the hotel room! I’m so glad that we realized this before we left the hotel. I went back up and rescued the cute little bear and a rogue pacifier. Whew, close call!

It didn’t take us long to get from the hotel to the port. I would recommend the hotel for those who don’t wish to do any sightseeing before a cruise. It was cheaper than other hotels in the area, though I have heard that some have parking and shuttle services for cruises. If we sail out of Norfolk again, I’ll probably check into that.

We drove to the Half Moone Cruise and Celebration Center to drop off our luggage and headed to the Cedar Grove parking lot. The parking went smoothly and was $10/day. I guess they only have one ship at a time, so they knew that everyone was here for the 5-day cruise. We took the free shuttle bus to the port. Now we’re getting really excited, but we’re still nervous as we have to make it through the check-in and security process.

Traveling with a toddler is certainly different than the pre-baby days. We found ourselves waiting for elevators instead of taking the stairs, for example. When we got into the terminal, we were handed a health form. Uh oh. I had been dreading this part of the process and very nervous that they were going to deny us boarding. The first question: have you had any diarrhea or vomiting in the past 3 days? Ok, we’re fine on this one. No for all three of us. The second question: have you had any of the following symptoms in the past 7 days: coughing, sore throat, fever, chills, runny nose. Uh oh. Miraculously, we could say “no” for Maddie. It might be the only one week period where she hasn’t had any of those symptoms since she started daycare, ha! Unfortunately, we could not say “no” for Gabe. Truthfully, he had ALL of those symptoms in the past 7 days. Gabe had been really quite sick with a sinus infection. He’s had an awful cough and all the other symptoms of the swine flu. Yikes. Since he still had a cough and a runny nose (and honestly, still looked a little rough), we had to say “yes.” We knew we could be dooming our vacation.

We went to get into the long, long check-in line and were pleasantly surprised to be expedited to the front of the line. This was due to having a small child, not due to his answer on the form. The lady who checked us in said we were the first people to say “yes” on the form, and she had to go find out what to do. We were escorted to the director who arranged for Gabe to visit with the medical staff. I was so nervous!!! I kept pacing back and forth with the stroller, so worried that they were going to cancel our long-awaited and much deserved vacation. It seemed to take forever! Finally, Gabe emerged from the health check and we were cleared to board. Whew! He said that they checked for fever and looked at his throat and such and pretty much everything looked fine. Thank goodness.

We were able to get through the rest of the process quickly, again due to having a little one. Our boarding photos looked pretty bad as we were ridiculously happy to actually be getting on the ship! We opted to put those into the bin. Stay tuned for the next long winded summary of our trip…Day 1 on the cruise ship coming soon.

We celebrated Maddie’s 15-month mark in the middle of the Atlantic. This installment of Letters to Maddie is a few days late due to our trip! (more…)

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that made me smile this week: Watching Maddie run on the decks of the ship was the highlight of the trip for me. She was shrieking with joy. I loved seeing her so happy.

Something I’m thinking: I have a lot of photos to sort from our trip!!!

Something I am hoping: I’m hoping to get the time to put together a photobook from the trip. I also still need to finish last year’s photobook(s).

Something happening around the house: We had another games day/night at our house yesterday. I was able to play several “real” games, thanks to Gabe having “baby duty” for the majority of the night.

Something I’m reading: I mostly read The Daily Compass schedules on our cruise this week! I started reading Practical Magic and hope that I can finish it before Wednesday – yikes, not much time left! I have quite a bit left in Parenting, Inc. for the Mothers & More book club in a few weeks.

Something tasty I ate this week: Out of all the things that I ate on the cruise, I feel like mentioning the oatmeal. YUM! I love the real oatmeal that I had on the cruise and all the little sides of brown sugar, raisins, and almonds. So tasty!

Something Maddie did this week: She took her first cruise!

Something I struggled with this week: We didn’t have too many struggles while on vacation aside from things like worrying about whether the baby has enough sunscreen and how to entertain her at meals.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: Gabe and I both went to the spa for professional massages on the cruise. It was wonderful. Gabe enjoyed the hot stones massage. Rocks make it a bit more manly, right? I’ve marked both of these goals off my list.

Something I learned this week: I learned that Maddie absolutely LOVES her stroller. She kept begging to ride in it while we were on the cruise. When we came home, we had to hide it so she didn’t throw a fit every time that she saw it.

Something I’m looking forward to next week: I’m glad to have a holiday tomorrow. I still need some recovery time from our trip! The cleaners are coming this week. I also have book club, if I can finish this month’s selection…only a few more days!!!

Something random: While in Bermuda, we traveled over the smallest drawbridge in the world. Somerset Bridge was built in 1620 and opens 22 inches, just barely big enough to allow a sailboat’s mast to pass.

Something I captured: We bought several of the photos from the ship’s photographers. Here’s one of our favorites from formal night.

We’re celebrating Maddie’s 15-month mark on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, but I’ll be writing her 15-month letter when we return!